


Purpose

by fmo



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Everybody dies twice, F/M, Gen, Seriously major character death warning times eight, it's really really sad, semi-mythical
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-26
Updated: 2013-08-26
Packaged: 2017-12-24 18:20:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/943144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fmo/pseuds/fmo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four people have parts they must play in saving the world.</p><p>When they die too soon, they awaken again with the knowledge of their purpose. They'll live on until that destiny is fulfilled.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Purpose

Stacker Pentecost dies in 2016.

 

It’s just after his diagnosis; he’s alone in his room at the Jaeger Academy. As he falls to his knees and finds himself leaning against the soft edge of his bed, he thinks that at least it’s quick.

 

He closes his eyes.

 

The sun moves slightly in the sky.

 

He opens his eyes. Now, deep in his bones, he knows why he’s been brought back. He has a purpose to fulfill: just saving the world, that’s all. 

 

Stacker doesn’t know how, but he knows that one day he will orchestrate the plan that will close the Breach. He’ll live on until that day.

 

*

 

Newton Geiszler dies in 2025.

 

Newt knew that Drifting with an alien brain was risky—even, as some people would say, stupid. But fortune favors the brave.

 

He slumps on the floor, blood under his nose, blood dotted on his shirt. His eyes are closed, but the left one is entirely red.

 

Rain falls.

 

He opens his eyes. The red drains from one of them, just slightly.

 

The data definitely says he died. Hermann would go nuts if he saw it, Newt thinks wildly. But, unscientific as it is, Newt has the feeling he’s been brought back for a reason. He’s supposed to drift with a kaiju brain again—a whole one this time, Newt thinks.

 

He might go out after that, but what a way to go out.

 

*

 

Mako doesn’t remember what really happened in Tokyo when Stacker found her. And never, not if the sun goes out, will Stacker tell her that her memory is flawed.

 

She thinks she remembers that he was riding on top of his Jaeger, hundreds of feet up. But she also remembers seeing his face clearly.

 

The very first thing that little Mako says to Stacker, though, is that she wants to be a Jaeger pilot. The determination burns through her, makes her the best the Academy had ever seen.

 

“I want to be a Jaeger pilot,” she tells everyone she meets at PPDC Command, until, finally, Stacker enrolls her in the Jaeger Academy. She's the youngest trainee on record.

 

*

 

Raleigh Becket dies in 2020.

 

His head slams back as his Jaeger rocks under Knifehead’s blow.

 

He closes his eyes.

 

The kaiju turns away from him.

 

He opens his eyes.

 

Because there is nothing else he can do, he forces his Jaeger’s arms to move, makes it stumble back to shore. As his face touches the cold sand, he thinks that he must have been brought back for a reason. He must have.

 

Five years later, when Marshall Pentecost arrives in a helicopter-blade windstorm, Raleigh thinks he knows what that reason is.

 

He’s okay with it.

 

*

 

After Newt and Hermann call out their discovery over the comms, Newt wants to lie down.

 

Complaining all the way in a fashion that shows he’s secretly concerned, Hermann helps Newt to the nearest bedroom, where Newt curls up on a bunk.

 

“Hey,” Newt says. “Thanks.”

 

It was pretty awesome, after all.

 

“Newton?” says Hermann.

 

*

 

Mako sees her purpose in the Drift after she chases the RABIT back to Tokyo.

 

Raleigh’s thoughts as he holds her tell her that this, too, is something they share.

 

But she’s a Ranger, and a Jaeger pilot, and when she’s under the Pacific with Raleigh and her father she’s exactly where she wants to be.

 

As her oxygen fades out despite Raleigh’s efforts to help, she disconnects her boots and gloves from the Conn-Pod.

 

*

 

Raleigh thinks his part wasn’t so hard after all.

 

He got to meet a wonderful woman. He got to pilot Gipsy one more time.

 

After he starts Gipsy’s detonation sequence, he releases his feet and hands from their connections, too. He and Mako hold on to each other as rain falls inside the Conn-Pod, surrounding them both in water for just a few seconds until the countdown ends.

 

*

 

It’s been a long time, Stacker thinks. A long time since he piloted a Jaeger. A long time of keeping his eyes fixed on a goal that seemed so far away, of setting all the pieces in place for one final outcome. Now he’s reached that destiny, like a vanishing point on the horizon. Like a sunrise.

 

He would not choose to have spent the nine years of his second lifetime in any other way.

 

 _Teacher, I love you_ , Mako says, and Stacker closes his eyes in the faith that his purpose is fulfilled. 


End file.
